of external aid, donor agencies have avoided exploring the amorphous concepts of sustainable agriculture and especially the intertemporal trade-offs among the different objectives of productivity growth, population growth and environmental sustainability, and their implications for aid policy., A bandwagon effect has been in operation on aid to Africa with wide swings from basic needs, to macro policy reform, to women in development, social dimensions of adjustment, food security, privatization, export promotion, capacity building, governance, and on and on.
Exploration of these- issues is critical, but strategic priorities will have to be established to achieve technological investment, organization and human capital development needed to develop sustainable systems of agricultural management in Africa. Without strategic priorities it is unlikely that prospects for sustainable agriculture will improve.
The need to establish strategic priorities must not be lost sight of in the preoccupation with the adverse consequences of macroeconomic policies on the misallocation of factors of production. These are by now well recognized and not elaborated here. For example, overvalued exchange rates and other implicit and explicit forms of taxation of agriculture depresses production. Indiscriminate subsidies on fertilizers result in their overuse and inappropriate application, etc. Similarly, land policies biased in favor of large farmers in some countries are leading to the crowding of the population on a limited amount of land, increasing poverty and reducing the ability of poor households to bear the risk associated with innovation with modern technology, etc. (Lele).
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